What do Widehand hermit crabs and Romney sheep have in common? The answer is most likely Kathy Green — marine biologist, teacher, Marine Life Center Advisory Board member, and owner of Ferndale Fiber.
When Captain Jacques Cousteau stepped onto the Calypso for his five-year exploration at sea, he was also inspiring one Bellingham middle school student, Kathy Green, to become a marine biologist.
Kathy’s first adventures at sea were sailboat racing with her father aboard the Gypsy Rose. “It was a big fleet that raced on Wednesday nights out on Bellingham Bay,” Kathy says. “We had a crew of guys – and me. It was really fun.”
It was during her sailboat racing days that Kathy met her future husband, Dave Green. “He was racing on a boat that belonged to one of the teachers at Bellingham High School,” Kathy says, “and he saw me and came over and asked me out.” The high school sweethearts married at ages 19 and 20.
As a college student at Western Washington University with an interest in marine biology, Kathy spent a lot of her time at the Shannon Point Marine Center in Anacortes. Kathy studied biology at the undergraduate level and marine biology at the graduate level before going on to teach laboratories and a 400 level biology class for a university instructor who was on medical. It was during this time that Kathy discovered her love for teaching.
While earning her Masters degree, Kathy taught courses at Whatcom Community College and became involved with the Marine Life Center, initially working on her thesis in the back room. It was here that she first started studying the molting patterns of the Widehand hermit crab.
Kathy’s question was if the Widehand hermit crabs would continue to grow and get bigger even if they didn’t have larger shells. To find out more, Kathy started to experiment and observe. “I isolated some [crabs] with empty snail shells they could move into and some without and then watched to see what size they would get. If there were larger snail shells to move into they would grow larger in their whole body but if there wasn’t then just the parts that hung out of the snail shell would grow bigger. Their claws would get bigger but their body would stay the same,” she explained.
While working on her thesis, Kathy was invited to join the Advisory Board of Directors for the Marine Life Center, where she has currently served for more than 20 years.
After completing her graduate studies, Kathy continued to teach at Whatcom Community College. And over the years, she partnered with Whatcom Community College colleague Sue Weber and Western Washington University biology professor Burt Weber to provide educational tours to middle school students around Whatcom County.
For 13 years, Kathy worked as a part-time biology instructor, so when Sue, a full-time biology instructor at the college, retired, Kathy was hopeful of filling the position. However, when the position was filled by another applicant, Kathy decided to resign and embark upon a new career path — Ferndale Fiber.
Kathy’s first Romney sheep, Sofie, is what started her on the gradual journey into the world of fiber processing. “We had to have her sheared and I thought, ‘I can’t throw this wool away. I have to do something with it.’ So then I went and took a spinning class and learned how to process and spin,” she explains. “I knew about fiber processing because I had stuff sent off to be processed. So I thought, well maybe I could do that.”
Kathy did some research, bought a little machine, and began processing fiber for people. She toured mills with her husband, a fellow Marine Life Center Advisory Board member and president of Acme Valley Foods, to gain knowledge of the industry and was later given the opportunity to buy an industrial sized carding machine from a mill in Oregon that was going out of business.
Weighing nine tons, the carding machine was originally shipped from the East Coast to the Oregon mill around 1925. From Oregon, it travelled by Semi Truck and moved with a forklift to Kathy and Dave’s workshop in Ferndale. At this time, Kathy stopped custom processing and began dying wool to process for wholesale instead.
Working part time at her own business allowed Kathy to be involved with her children while they were in school. “It was fun raising the kids on a farm with sheep and they would get to see lambs born,” Kathy says. “They would help out and do stuff around the farm. I think that was good for kids.” But now that her children are grown, Kathy says she’s ready for a change and plans to sell her Ferndale Fiber business.
From the sea to the land, Kathy has always found herself working with animals. As she looks ahead to the next chapter of her life, she’s not yet sure where exactly she will end up, but like the Widehand hermit crab, she will take on a new adventure and continue to grow.
